August 18, 2015

All that is real is Love. No exceptions. Anything that is not Love is not real. Love is our essence. Love is our desire. So why do we seek Love when we are Love. We decided to split from Love and try to make our own love apart from Love. Does that sound insane? The Course would say yes, but we tried anyway. The Course tells us:

Do you really believe that you can kill your real Self? The One has hidden us safely within Oneness, and kept us far away from our destructive thoughts, but we know neither the One nor our real Self because of our destructive thoughts. We attack the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet we are surprised that we cannot see the real world. If we seek love in order to attack it, you will never find it. 5 For if love is sharing, how can we find it except through itself? Offer love and love will come to you, because it is drawn to itself – love. But offer attack and love will remain hidden, for love can live only in peace. T-12.VIII.1.1-7

What do we want? Love! When do we want it? Uh…there’s a cheer in there somewhere. It’s our choice when we decide we want love enough to let go of our attempt to find it outside ourselves and instead look within to the guidance of Spirit. When we chose to align with the egoic thought system – the split mind – we separated ourselves from the awareness of Love within us. We separated ourselves from the awareness of who we really are. We could not possibly be aware of who we really are and align with our egoic thought system at the same time for that would be so conflicting we could not bear the conflict. The two are irreconcilable. The One holds our real Self-awareness protected in Oneness in readiness for our willingness to remember who we really are.

How beautiful is that Love? We are given free will to create, even in error, but our real Self is held for us unchanged and undamaged by whatever crazy mixed up “reality” we try to create for ourselves. One world is visible to us at any given time. The world we chose to see is the one visible to us. The other world becomes invisible. Even though the real world becomes invisible to us when we choose to align with our split mind – outside ourselves, it never leaves us. It is always held within us in Oneness for our return. Yet, when we choose to align with the real world within us, the temporal world we made up fades away into nothingness. This is the promise of salvation we have misunderstood. When we realize that we are not finding the Love we are seeking, we can turn from looking without to looking within and there see clearly with the Vision of Spirit held so close for us. Be just a little willing to let go of what we have made outside of us and look within to the Love that is already there. Love will come rushing to you for you are Love and you attract Love. There is no mistake about it.

I am reminded of a metaphor rom the theatre. The Course talks of a veil we have pulled over our sight blocking our awareness of the real world. In the theatre world there is a device called a scrim used to hide the part of the stage behind it. As long as there is no light behind the scrim, the audience cannot see what is behind it. They see only what is in front of it. But the instant light shines behind the scrim, the scrim seems to disappear and what has always been behind the scrim is fully visible. Our true Self is behind that veil, that scrim. It has always been and always will be there. We control the turning on of the lights. When we choose to let light shine on what is behind the veil, the scrim, we will see the Love that is within us, and all the Love there is will come to us and join us in the abundance of Love. What are we waiting for? Look within and let your light shine on the real world within you. There you will find all you have been seeking and more in its abundance.

The At-One-ment is but the way back to what was never lost. The One could not cease to love Us. T-12.VIII.1.8-9

August 11, 2015

Once we choose to look within and accept our function to extend and share peace and love, we will find peace and love which is already within us. Peace and love are not static, for they need to be freely shared to be vibrant. Peace and love are dynamic by nature and thus cannot remain static. The Course gives us this promise:

When you have accepted your mission to extend peace you will find peace, for by making it manifest you will see it. Its holy witnesses will surround you because you called upon them, and they will come to you. I have heard your call and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me nor hear the answer that you sought. That is because you do not yet want only that. Yet as I become more real to you, you will learn that you do want only that. And you will see me as you look within, and we will look upon the real world together. Through the eyes of Christ, only the real world exists and only the real world can be seen. As you decide so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to your decision. T-12.VII.11.1-8

We must decide what we want, what we really want. A soul searching look within will reveal the desire to recognize our wholeness when we allow Spirit to guide our choice. We have no idea how much effort we have expended blocking Spirit’s guidance within our mind. We will sigh in great relief when we relinquish that effort and allow Spirit to guide our choices and wonder why we fought our true nature so diligently through all our separated days.

Whenever we look without, outside ourselves without the guidance of Spirit, and react unfavorably to what we see, we have condemned our consciousness to our egoic thought system – our split mind, judging ourselves unworthy. Nothing could be further from the truth, for we are undeniably worthy, whole and complete in our creation. Our egoic thought system cannot change who we are or mar our divine nature. However, it can block our awareness of that divine nature, wholeness and completeness when we align our mind with its desire to separate from our true nature. This mistaken thought system has convinced us we have displeased our Creator, a feat that is impossible for we are One with our Creator. Yet, we have believed this mistaken concept.

When we are tempted to yield to the desire to look outward and be apart, remember that Spirit holds our true nature in our mind, waiting for us to turn around and look within to the truth of our divine nature. Look within and again choose to accept our function to extend and share peace and love. We will find and recognize that same peace and love within us in all its dynamic grace and grandeur. See only what is within us that is eternal and limitless and free. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be compromised. Look within and allow Spirit to guide us back to the awareness of who we really are and look upon the world from within with divine loving eyes. We will see what we know we are. Look within and let it be so.

August 4, 2015

This section of the Course is so important for me. We must learn to look inside and trust what we see. For inside is reality. The wholeness, completeness and limitlessness of who we are is not visible to the physical eye. Nor is it visible at all. But its effects are apparent, even obvious. What is real is within us. And it will be reflected in our awareness in our mind if we will allow. Letting go of our rigid beliefs about how anything should appear is the key to allowing our true awareness to rise within us. We expend a great deal of effort squelching our spiritual sight. Yet it takes much less effort to let go of the squelching and allow Spirit to guide the rising of the awareness of who we really are in our mind. We turn our spiritual eyes away from what is outside of us and focus the on the Divine truth that is within us.

This Section, Section VII, opens with this:

Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalization is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you apply them to all situations. There is no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them to all situations you will gain the real world. For in this holy perception you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from your acceptance of it for yourself to everyone the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing. In every child of the One, the One’s blessing lies, and in your blessing of the children of the One is the One’s blessing to you.   T-12.VII.1.1-6

Learning is invisible. Miracles are invisible. The real world is invisible. But, the results of all this will be apparent when we look within and see with our spiritual eyes. The world outside may or may not appear differently, but we will perceive it differently. We must all play our part in the redemption of the world – seeing it differently.

Likewise, Spirit is invisible. We see and experience the results of Spirit’s presence and guidance in our lives when we look within and allow ourselves to see with our inner Spirit Vision. This is the Vision that sees clearly and correctly. In its sight what is true and real remains or becomes evident and what is not real fades away. In this sight the world we think we see is transcended, for the real world and what is possible in the real world is far beyond the world we think we see outside ourselves. Our mind, with the guidance and partnership of Spirit, sees that as our function in Heaven is Creation, our function on earth is healing. As long as we believe otherwise about who we are, we will block our awareness of peace and who we really are.

We see what we believe about ourselves, and we believe the result of where we invite ourselves to look – inside or outside. What guidance have we chosen? The Course has this to say:

You see what you expect, and you expect what you invite. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it. Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you manifest, and as you look out so will you see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you have chosen. T-12.VII.5.1-6

Which way of looking at the world have we chosen?   Which guidance have we chosen? Our choice is revealed in what world manifests in our mind. We believe the manifestation of the guidance we have chosen. If we are not happy with the manifestation we see we can choose our guidance again. Choose the guidance of Spirit and see the real world revealed within. Remember always to look within where the real you is waiting.